


Conditions

by zeuswrites



Series: Guns Go Off When I Enter The Building [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 08:49:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1544825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeuswrites/pseuds/zeuswrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charon reminisces about his last employer and thinks about his new-found freedom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conditions

**Author's Note:**

> Ever wanted to slap Charon a little for just leaving you to these Enclave soldiers? Yeah, me too. Fallout Kink Meme fill.

Charon thought of Eveline often.

They had an odd sort of understanding. She didn’t pretend to be his friend, like Azrukhal sometimes liked to when he was in a vicious mood; she never lied to him, never dressed her orders in pretty words. He wasn’t her “dear friend”, with an arm slung over his back and bile rising in his throat. He was never “getting impatient” as she drank in the fear in her victim’s face. He did not have to “dispose of the unwelcome guest”. He just had to kill, plain and simple. 

His life with her was much more violent, much more dangerous, than it used to be only six months ago. But it was honest, straightforward. She did not have a propensity for subterfuge, or even for convenient lies. All she had was strength, and that suited Charon just fine. He was knee-deep in brass half the time he was with her, and for all that, they never killed someone that did not have it coming.

She was weepy. She was brutal. She was bitter and ill-mannered. She called him every insult under the sun, and made him carry so much he would double over under the weight, and after their second month, she stopped trying to hide when taking another swig of whiskey, and he stopped pretending he did not see.

She took a bullet for him, once. 

He didn’t like her, and she didn’t like him. But he was never ashamed of working for her. 

Of all of his employers, he hated her the least, he decided, downing the glass in one shot.

"What’s going on out there?" Sydney said, craning her neck. Charon didn’t hear anything over the radio, but she had better ears than him. Several other people around the bar perked up as well, looking at each other and shifting in their seats.

She got up and left the bar, taking her gun with her, followed by two ghouls. Charon didn’t bother. Someone would get him if it was serious. He had seen all the drunken fights this town had to offer already, and he didn’t give a shit if someone cut Patches up again. That was about all that happened around there. 

He thought of Eveline again as he poured himself another glass of scotch. He never had to complain about boredom when he was around her. Always another stinking old vault to explore, always more people blubbering on her arm for help with errands, always more raiders or supermutants or animals to run into. It was a miracle they lasted that long.

It took ten men to take her down. She blew the brains out of the first two, before someone kicked her rifle out of her hands. She kicked and hit like an animal, and he heard a crack as she snapped a soldier’s neck, but with a lucky blow to the head, she fell, and the remaining five dogpiled on her, pinning her down. He winced at the memory. They dragged her into the vertibird, at least one crossing himself before getting to it. He didn’t linger after that; he couldn’t follow a vertibird, and he didn’t want to know what was done to her.

He respected her. He did. But she was still his employer, and that meant that he prayed every night for her to die, for him to not be able to save her one day, for his best to not be enough, for a fire to burn her and that fucking piece of paper that made his life a limbo to ash. 

He did not know what he was going to do now.

A chair near him scraped against the floor and snapped him out of his stupor. The commotion was louder now; people around him were standing up, backing up in apprehension, still too curious to leave. Loud footsteps were approaching the Ninth Circle. Charon tensed, reaching for his shotgun.

The door was kicked open with a slam, and the weapon slipped out of his hands.

The entire Underworld followed her upstairs, apparently. Tulip was covering her mouth. Doc Barrows held his hands up - a calming gesture, or maybe one to keep at bay, or maybe washing his hands of this. Willow had her rifle ready, for the first time looking like she didn’t have trust in it. Sydney’s hand was on her gun, too, but Charon knew he wasn't the one she would back up.

For the first time in his life, Charon knew what it felt like to see him approaching, and having nowhere to run.

The ensuing beatdown, Charon decided about ten minutes into it, was the worst one he experienced to date. Eveline didn’t give him a chance. He was so shocked to see her that he didn’t even flinch as she reached over his table and grabbed him by the shirt, lifting his feet off the floor, and throwing him against the wall. His head bounced off it with a disgusting crack, and his vision swam. Something hit his knees, and he concluded it must have been the floor, before a heavy boot in his face cut off any thoughts he could have had at this point. 

She didn’t stop screaming for a second. 

"You just left me there! You left me with them and I could have died, all this for, for, I could have died there and you DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!"

"Honor-bound! Piece of shit, look at you! You wouldn’t know honor if it kicked-you-not-like-this-if-it—"

"All these times I covered your ass! Fixed you up, made sure—"

"What the hell have I DONE to you?!"

He stopped recognizing words after a while. He was grateful. More than the teeth being crushed in his mouth, more than ribs cracking, more than the heavy boot landing again and again and the blood gurgling in his throat, it hurt more that he knew he deserved every second of it. 

She stopped suddenly. She stumbled backwards, until she bumped into the bar. Her arms dropped freely and she sagged, shaking all over, sweat dripping from her face. She was wheezing loudly, painfully. Like a horse about to drop, Charon thought. The only sound in the room was their panting, now. 

The floor was cold and slippery under his cheek.

"Why?", Eveline asked shakily. "Why did you want me dead?" She didn’t sound angry anymore. Just tired, like the question was worn on her lips by now.

Why did it have to be you, he thought. Why did you have to come back. Why have you ever walked into this shithole, kid? Why didn't you turn away from it? We both would have been more innocent for it.

He coughed up a glob of blood, and put all the strength he had left into getting to his knees. God, it hurt. He wondered if he was going to die, and decided he didn’t care right now.

He looked up at her tear-streaked face and said:

"Physical violence on your part invalidates our contract."


End file.
